Note: Unfortunately, this is the sixth year in a row that I feel compelled to circulate this call (the text is updated from last year.....) best wishes for a happy and peaceful pesach, Gil Troy

Once again, during this year's seders, we will celebrate our joyous holiday of liberation with heavy hearts. Even as we revel in our freedom as Jews in the modern world, even as we marvel at Israel's strength and tenacity in the wake of a terrorist onslaught, too many of our brothers and sisters in Israel are in pain. This year, in particular, as we mark the fourth yahrzheit of the Netanya Seder Massacre, when 30 people ranging in age from 25-years-old to 92-years-old were brutally murdered, we must rise to the challenge to reclaim our symbols, to remember our losses, to reaffirm our commitment to Israel, to the Jewish people, and to a true peace.

In the bloody, unnecessary war begun when the Palestinians turned away from negotiations toward violence, too many died, too many have been injured, on both sides. And too many seders now have empty chairs - missing husbands, fathers, brothers, sons; missing wives, mothers, sisters, daughters.

The power of the seder - which remains one of the most popular of Jewish ceremonies - comes from its ritualization of memory. It is a most primal, most sensual, most literal, of services. The seder plate - with its representations of the mortar used in building, the charoset, and of the tears shed by the slaves, the salt water - helps us visualize the trauma of slavery.

The physical acts of reclining, of eating special foods, of standing to greet Elijah the prophet, help us feel the joy of Yetziat Mitzrayim, of leaving Egypt. And, in an affirmation of the importance of peoplehood, we mark this special moment not as individuals but as a community.

In that spirit, we cannot proceed with business as usual during these difficult times. We must improvise a new ritual that marks our present pain, that illustrates our vital connection with Israel and with Israelis today. Let each of us, as we gather at our seders, intrude on our own celebrations by leaving one setting untouched, by having one empty chair at our table.

Let us take a moment to reflect on our losses from these terrible five-and-a-half years, for even as stability has returned, terror attempts continue, freshly dug graves pockmark the Holy Land, and the mourning for those lost persists. And as we reflect, let us not just remember the dead as hundreds of nameless and faceless people, but let us personalize them. Let us take the time to find out the name of one victim of the current conflict, one Jew who cannot celebrate this year's holiday, one family in mourning.

Let us call out the name of Benny Avraham, age 20, one of three young Israelis murdered by Hezbollah in a failed kidnapping in October 2000, whose body was kept frozen as the sadistic terrorists toyed with the emotions of the three grieving families - and people of conscience throughout the world.

Let us call out the name of Koby Mandell, age 13, a young American immigrant brutally killed in May, 2001, whose father, Rabbi Seth Mandell, talks about the empty seat at his Shabbat table and shares the pain of watching other boys grow up, watching their voices deepen, their shoulders broaden, their gaits quicken, even as his son lies dead.

Let us call out the names of Ernest and Eva Weiss, aged 80 and 75, residents of Petach Tikvah who survived Nazi concentration camps only to be slaughtered while sitting down for the Pesach Seder at the Park Hotel exactly four years ago, Pesach, 2002.

Let us call out the names of Maryam Attar, 27, Kamar Abu Hamed, 12, Abigail Leitel, 14, Mordechai Hersko, 41, and his son Tom Hershko, 15, a Muslim, a Druze, a Baptist, and two Jews, among the 17 murdered in Haifa just over two years ago on March 5, 2003.

Let us call out the names of Ilan Avisidris, 41, of Jerusalem, Lior Azulai, 18, of Jerusalem, Yaffa Ben-Shimol, 57, of Jerusalem, Rahamim Doga, 38, of Mevasseret Zion, Yehuda Haim, 48, of Givat Ze'ev, St.-Sgt. Netanel Havshush, 20, of Jerusalem, Yuval Ozana, 32, of Jerusalem, Benayahu Yehonatan Zuckerman, 18, of Jerusalem - the very diversity of the names reflecting the multicultural nature of Israeli society, now integrated ever closer together in a tapestry of pain. These 8 were murdered on an Egged Bus, in front of Liberty Bell Park, in February, 2004 as international jurists gathered in the Hague to judge Israel's methods of self-defense, without acknowledging Israel's motivation for defending herself.

Let us call out the names of Rafi Halevy, age 63, his wife Helena Halevy, age 58, and the two hitchhikers they picked up, Re'ut Feldman, 20, and Shaked Lasker, a 10th grader, age 16. They were all murdered just two weeks ago, on March 30, 2006, by a third hitchhiker dressed as a yeshiva student, who blew up their car. This Pesach, each of their families will struggle to find some joy at the seder table, with their wounds so fresh.

And as we condemn modern-day Pharoahs in Iran and elsewhere, as we recoil from the worldwide scourge of anti-Semitism this terrorism also unleashed, let us call out the names of Ilan Halimi, the 23-year-old French Jew cellphone salesman kidnapped, tortured and murdered in a Parisian suburb by anti-Semitic thugs, and of Daniel Pearl, the 38-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped, then murdered, in Pakistan almost exactly four years earlier.

As we call out these names, let us commit to some action, to embrace the families of the victims - the thousand who died and the nearly ten thousand who were injured. As we call out these names, let us commit to building a friendship with Israel and Israelis which is not just about politics, and not solely about mourning and memory.

And as we call out these names, unlike too many of our enemies, let us not call for vengeance, let us not call for more bloodshed. Instead, as we mourn, let us hope; as we remember the many lives lost during this crazy and pointless war, let us pray ever more intensely for a just and lasting peace.

Information about many of the Israelis killed in the current violence can be found at the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Web site: www.mfa.gov.il Click on Terrorism -- Terror since 2000 - In Memory of the Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism.

Ideas about how to help families of victims can be found at One Family Fund.

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today, being released in a revised and expanded edition this spring.